Blizzard: Colorado, 1886 by Kathleen Duey and Karen A. Bale Read Free Book Online Page A

realized it was snowing much harder than it had been a few minutes before. She could see only a few hundred feet in any direction.

    Hadyn blinked. His eyes ached with cold, but he couldn’t stop peering through the driven snow. Whoever the riders had been, they seemed to be as lost as he was. At every rise he had been expecting to see a ranch house, or a cabin, or a camp. At the least, he had hoped the riders would lead him back to the road. But all they had done was to keep blundering upward, in what seemed like an almost random path, skirting rocks and slopes too steep to clamber up. Now, their tracks led through a copse of aspen trees growing within a maze of fallen logs and fire-blackened stumps.
    Hadyn staggered out of the stand of aspens, then hesitated, blinking owlishly, trying to clear his vision. The stark, white snow seemed flat, without detail. He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, then opened them again. Suddenly he glimpsed movement up ahead.
    Hadyn’s heart leapt with hope, then crashed when he saw cattle lumbering through the deep drifts across the meadow. They were spread out; two of them were nearly into the trees on the other side. His eyes frantically followed the trodden snow fromwhere he stood all the way uphill to the lead cow. Suddenly he understood. There weren’t any horses or riders—and there never had been.
    He balled his numb hands into clumsy fists and fought panic. Cows? How could he have been so stupid? He shook his head in disgust. Instead of finding help, he had only gotten himself more lost—and in more danger.
    Hadyn let his bag slide from his shoulder to the ground. He rubbed his hands together, blowing warm air into one glove, then the other. He tried to think, to figure out what he should do next. It was snowing harder. Maybe he should go down the way he had come up. He might have a better chance at finding the road again.
    Hadyn turned into the wind, pulling his hat low over his eyes. Two of the cows were at the top of the slope now, headed back into the trees. Whether the ground rose or fell from there, Hadyn couldn’t tell. Everything past the edge of the meadow faded into the blur of the falling snow.
    Hadyn glanced down at the hindmost cow. It was smaller than the other two, he realized. Much smaller. And it wasn’t moving. It looked like it hadlain down next to a rock. Was it resting? Hurt?
    Hadyn blinked again. As he stared down the slope, the smaller cow seemed to shudder, jerking back and forth. For a moment Hadyn couldn’t understand. When he did, his heart slammed against his ribs and he held his breath.
    The rock wasn’t a rock at all. It was the mountain lion, its muzzle red with blood. It had killed the youngest cow and was now eating its dinner. As Hadyn watched, the cows carcass shuddered again as the lion ripped loose another mouthful of flesh.
    Hadyn stood helplessly, afraid to move, afraid to attract the big cat’s attention. Walking sideways up the hill, Hadyn bumped into a blackened aspen stump. He stood, pressed close to it, unable to takehis eyes off the mountain lion.
    The wind gusted and Hadyn could hear the branches of the aspens below him rattling against each other. The snow stung the side of his face and he ducked his chin down into his coat collar.
    Suddenly the mountain lion straightened and raised its reddened muzzle. Hadyn caught his breath. The cat lifted its head, then turned slightly to face Hadyn. The big animal seemed to look straight into his eyes. As cold as he was, Hadyn felt a clammy sweat rise on the back of his neck and on his forehead.
    Moving like tawny liquid up the snowy hill, the mountain lion took one step toward him, then another. Hadyn swallowed, gripping the aspen stump so hard that his fingers ached. Hesitating, the cat looked back at the cow’s carcass, then came forward again.
    Hadyn moved backward without meaning to, stumbling over a fallen log. Scrambling up, he saw the cat